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automotive welds

Found these yesterday while looking at new trucks. Im assuming these were robotically done. Given the spatter I also figured they were FC of some sort. Do you agree? The main thing that surprised me was the undercut.undercut0.jpgundercut1.jpg

Sure looks undercut to me and not normal based on other welds on this truck and others on the lot. Its well out of the cut slot and that proabably is a defect as well. In the 2nd pic on the right end of the slot the weld wanders out of the slot which is clearly undercut.

Undercut or out-of-the-slot; it's still probably 3x stronger than it needs to be. Don't try to eyeball how strong it needs to be; modern finite-element-analysis in design is unbelievably accurate, which is why modern vehicles & other structures are so much lighter & stronger than previous eyeballed ones. Besides: it's under warranty. If it fails, it'll be repaired or replaced.

I'm not saying I approve of that weld. I'm saying the appearance of that weld is pretty common coming straight from the factory. Especially on bumper reinforcement.

Yes you are right because us welders care. But the factory doesn't. The sh !t that was going out of our shop was unreal but it passed inspection. I never would have let it go but it wasn't my call...Bob

automotive welds have been ugly since the begining of time. a car or truck produced on a belt in 20 hours will look like that. im sure if you bought a hand built car the welds would be perfect and your bank account would be empty. probably over engineered and over welded anyway.